News

Pulled from the archives and updated the months of June, July, August from 1979. Very strong declines of ice extent and area is observed. Actually the area decline is dropping faster indicating a further weakening of the sea ice... less and less multi-year ice, and first year ice formed in winter to hardly be thick enough to survive the next melt season. 2012 was an unremarkeble weather year except for a dubbed Great Arctic Cyclone - 2012. A Cold Core Cyclone that can only form when there's lots of warm air flowing into the arctic and vertical transport to the upper tropospheric layers, coupled with Coriolis influence, turning into a cyclone of Atlantic proportions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone . They are *not* to occur in summer, but rather a winter phenomena of the polar region.

New chart displaying the annual Arctic sea ice volume based on PIOMAS data. Maximum and minimum, plus the amount of annual volumetric melt that takes place. The general trend is that maximum is in decline. With same and more energy entering the system such albedo decline, warming ocean water, green house gas effect [primary drivers such as CO2 and with increasing temps, the water vapor strong increase due open ocean causing major feedback], the amount of annual melt increasing. See the NH Sea Ice - Volume page for the addition and other charts on Arctic sea ice volume.

Since a few weeks the National Snow and Ice Data Center makes daily sea ice extent numbers available in 2 files, one through 2010 which are final, and a second from 1.1.2011 which is subject to change at any time. At any rate, these are directly related to the images they have on their website page at http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/index.html right hand second frame where the monthly and daily charts can be picked for the Arctic and Antarctic. From this data, put up a new chart same as for the Crysphere Today Sea Ice Area data, with 1 day minimum, date of minimum, how much the current year is ahead or behind on prior years and how much there was still to melt as of current day of year. Visit the extent page, link left margin, or click http://bit.ly/NSARMn for a quick link.

Today went into the recent digital archive to find a fitting image for the site... shoes on feet [of self] and backpack, amongst a still pristine piece of mountain landscape looking down onto the coast with the Adriatic in the far yonder. Vertically compressed to fit it in, but if you decompress, you can read where that backpack has been before (took 4 hours of hard sweat, and 1300 meter vertical ascend).

Had not updated this chart found on the Atmospheric Gases page [left margin menu] for nearly 2 years, awaiting the 2011 final number additions. Did now move ahead and added the 2010 data. This year the energy due to net greenhouse gas increases, [expressed in Watts], increased by 1.4% over 2009. With the base reference of 1990 Kyoto treaty set at 1.000, humanity already increased the energetic effect of GHG's by factor 1.290, or a rounded 0.3 Watts added to the atmosphere. CO2 on it's own is about 395 parts per million, volume [ppmv] at the moment, mid 2012. Come later autumn, that number will go up again as the Northern Hemisphere growth season comes to an end. It has been doing so at the rate of about 2 ppmv per annum, net. Particular interest for 2o11 is the CH4 component [methane gas]. There's an increasing outgassing observed from the Arctic Ocean and surrounding permafrosted land-regions [Siberia, Northern Canada/Alaska] which scientist such as Semiletov research and follow closely. This gas, though shorter lived in the open air, has an initial GHG effect, 100 times more powerful than CO2, and 23-25 times the effect over it's full residency period in the atmosphere.

Seems the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), has Sea Ice Extent readings [at > 30% concentration], which now mid August, already matches past *low* record of 2007, which bottomed mid September [See appended file link below]. Historically at least 2-4 weeks of melt to go, with data existing that these minima could hit as late as end of September. Oceans are hot. The Heat Content keeps rising, and eventually this is affecting every nook and cranny of the planet.

Addendum. The actual number, in the fringe was 87K Km square above the absolute record low.

First time I read up on Romney's new running mate's CV etc, then saw Paul Ryan's image, immediately had the association with a younger Sam Neill in the role of Damien Thorn in The Omen, The Final Conflict. This guy is bad news for the planet, in fact, the pair is.

1-7 of 7

This Website is absolutely Add-Free / AdSense disabled i.e. if you see any pop-up, not of my doing!(Commenting is disabled, you can reach me if you wish to)